LeBron undaunted by challenge of facing Warriors in Finals

All of which partly explains why the Cavaliers of James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love have not been challenged in the East during the postseason. “We’re trying to repeat, which is so hard to do”. “I tried to pay him and he wouldn’t take the money so he says I always owe him”. He’s their best defender by a mile and we saw how important he was past year after being suspended. “We match up well with them, and I think they’d say the same about us”, Love said after Saturday’s practice session, via ESPN. “They cannot. We can not go to Boston 2-2 and then it becomes almost an even series“.Cleveland coach Tyronn Lue was quoted earlier this week saying he thought Boston’s offense was “harder to defend” than Golden State’s.Should the Cavs win in Thursday night’s Game 5, they’ll establish a new league record by collecting their 13th straight win in a closeout game. It’s like.we’re in the NBA Finals. The addition of those pieces alone won’t be enough to get past a Cavs team that’s full of players in their prime in my mind. We’re not using that as an excuse. A lot of it likely has to do with the way players get paid in free agency.

1959-1966 – Boston wins the NBA Finals Championship for eight consecutive years. “So that’s what we’re focused on”.

June 16, 2015 – Finals – The Golden State Warriors defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers with a series win, 4-2.

May 30, 2016 – Western Conference Finals – The Golden State Warriors defeat the Oklahoma City Thunder with a series win, 4-3.

“He’s competitive”, Love said of Green.

“Playing in this league, you can’t take anything for granted”, Warriors guard Stephen Curry said. I’m all help if they need it. James says he wants to be known – and remembered – as more than a scorer. “It looks like they’re having fun, and we want to do something about that”. They played great basketball this year. We don’t know yet. That’s a 72 percent winning clip if you blindly bet the Over in each of their postseason games. The Warriors are 12-0 overall through the first three rounds; the Cavs are 12-1. Golden State has won 258 games in the regular season over the last four seasons. Will the Warriors be haunted by letting last season’s 3-1 lead slip away?

Some of that money could very easily go to Thomas, who is coming off an MVP-calibre season in which he averaged 28.9 points and 5.9 assists per game.

Green, for one, will appreciate all the hype around this series.

But Cleveland came back from a 3-1 series deficit to win their first-ever National Basketball Association championship. In that time since, LeBron has won three titles and cemented himself as one of the best players of all-time.

James referred to the Warriors as only “that juggernaut” and “a beast” following Thursday’s Game 5 in at Boston, a night in which he passed Michael Jordan as the career post-season scoring leader. He played just 18 minutes in game two while playing through the lingering pain.

“This will be talked about long after us”, Green said. But we’re both better.

Thomas knows what he brings to the team, though, and he has a simple message for those who still doubt his talents.